'Guernica': The Apocalypse of Representation

Author(s): Kathleen Brunner

Source: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 143, No. 1175 (Feb., 2001), pp. 80-85
Published by: Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/889165
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 KATHT.F,F,N BRUNNER

'Guernica': the apocalypse of representation

22. Guernica, by Picasso. 1st May-4thJune 1937. 349.3 by 776.6 cm. (Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid).

SINCE its unveiling in 1937 there has been endless debate
about what Picassos Guernica (Fig.22) represents, given that
the painting does not depict the actual bombing of the
Basque town on 26th April that year. Initiallyn there was a
rush to equate the content of the painting with the atrocity,
thanks to its title and to its context as the focal work in the
Spanish Pavilion of the Paris International Exhibition. Picas-
so, for his part, clearly identified Guernica with the Republican
struggle, and is reported by the Communist writer and film-
maker Georges Sadoul as saying: 'In the panel on which I am
working, which I shall call Guernica, and in all my recent
works of art, I clearly express my abhorrence of the military
caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death'.l
In an interview published in the American magazine J\ew
Masses in 1945, Picasso, by then an official member of the
French Communist Party, referred to the painting's 'deliber-
ate sense of propaganda' and went on to remark that the 'bull
represents brutality, the horse the people'.2
So what precisely does Guernica portray? The clues to the
meaning of Picasso's great painting seem at best enigmatic:
there is a speared horse in its death throes, an impassive bull
and a howling woman cradling her dead child. A fallen figure
(a soldier?), sword in hand, lies, mouth agape, beneath the
horse. Another anguished woman holds out a lamp, while
an astonished female witness gazes on the mayhem. Behind
the women, and unobserved by them, a plummeting figure
bursts into flames. The cartoon-like treatment of the figures,
similar to that in Picasso's pair of etchings fhe dream and lie
of Franco (1937; Fig.23), deflates the emotional drama of the
scene. More perplexing still are the surroundings, which
appear to be a walled town, strangely lit by an electric lamp.
Many readings of Guernica have been put forward, ranging
variously from the religious to the historical to the personal.
My own reading brings to light a possible literary source for
the painting which has not so far been considered: the legend
of Numancia, as told by Miguel de Cervantes in his play of
1580, El Cerco de J%umancia ( fAe Siege of J%umancia). Numancia,
the capital city of the Iberian Celts, has passed into Spanish
history as the symbol of popular resistance to enemy inva-
sion,3 for the Numantinos chose to commit mass suicide
rather than surrender to the Romans. I shall argue that in
Guernica Picasso appropriates the legend of Numancia for a
complex allegorisation of sacrifice and apocalypse. Picasso's
mise-en-scene in the painting stages not only his response to a
specific incident of the Spanish Civil War, but also his com-
mentary on the state of the world, of man and of himself as
an artist.
The legend of Numancia has been handed down in popu-
lar accounts, in Latin epic and history, and in the play by
Cervantes. Accounts of the Numantinos' final hours vary,
but in Cervantes's play, the people burn their possessions
in a bonfire to deprive the Roman general, Scipio Emilianus,
of booty. The women and children die at the hands of their
own soldiers, while the men fall on their swords. The legend
stirred nationalistic feelings during the reign of Philip II
and again in 1809, at the time of the Napoleonic invasion,
becoming resonant once more during the Spanish Civil War.
In his account of the war, Hugh Thomas notes that the belea-
guered Republicans called themselves 'Numantinos',4 a ref-
erence which would have been universally understood.
Rafael Alberti, the renowned Republican poet and play-
wright, wrote a 'free version' of Cervantes's J%umancia for per-

IH.B. CHIPP: Guernica: History, Dransformations, MeaniWs, London [l 989], p. 194. Chipp's
3M. DE CERVES: El Cerso de AumanGia) ed. R. MST, Madrid [1984], pp.24-25
study includes a discussion of earlier interpretations of the painting. and 30.
2J. SECLER: 'Picasso Explains', reprinted in D. ASHTON: piGasso on Art, New York 4H. THOMAS: The Spanish Civil War, 3rd ed., Harmondsworth [1986], p.769.
[1972], p.140.

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 PICASSO S GUERNICA AND CERVANTES S NUMANCIA

23. Dream and lae of Franco II, by Picasso. 8th/9thJanuary-7thJune 1937. 31.4 by 42 1 cm. ,(DACS).

formance during the Battle of Madrid in December 1937.5
He omitted all but the realistic and heroic elements of the
play in order to facilitate the understanding of ordinary
people, updating the conflict to the Civil War, dressing the
defending soldiers as Civil Guards and replacing the Romans
with fascists. In the prologue, Alberti speaks of the Numan-
cian struggle as 'an exact parallel to our Republican capital,
an example of resistance, morale and spirit to the people of
Madrid today, who have the same greatness and proud soul as
ie Numantinos'.6 It may be noted that Alberti, a prominent
member of the Republican government, deputised for Picas-
so as director ofthe Prado, a position Picasso had accepted in
absentia in September 1936.
The association of Numancia with Republican Spain had
already served as a catalyst for a French version of the play,
SNumance de Cervantes (Fig26), performed by Jean-Louis Bar-
rault's fledgling company at the Theatre Antoine in Paris
from 22nd April to 6th May, around the time of the bombing
of Guernica on 26th April.7 SNumance, a popular success dur-
ing its two-week run, had avant-garde as well as pro-Repub-
lican credentials. It was produced with the collaboration of
dissident Surrealists: the painter Andre Masson designed the
stage sets and costumes and the poet Robert Desnos assisted
Barrault with the direction.
Barrault described the importance of;Numance as an avant-
garde production - his company's first- in ie following terms:
Andre Masson (who, at the approach ofthe Civil War, had
brought back from Spain his wife and his two babies,
Diego and Luis) said to me: 'Since you love Cervantes, you
should reread SNumance.' I caught fire at once. Masson had
been right. I had found what I was looking for, a classic off
the beaten track. On the social plane I would be bringing
my contribution to the Spanish Republicans; in the play
plane of metaphysics of the theatre I would be going right
into the world of the fantastic, death, blood, famine, fury,
frenzy. There would be song, mime, dance, reality, the sur-
real. The river, fire, magic, my total theatre. I threw myself
into it without reserve.8
Aumance, a tragedy of violence and passion, was Barrault's
theatrical manifesto: the production attempted to fulfil some
of the aims of Antonin Artaud, Barrault's close friend and
colleague, including his concepts of alchemical theatre and
metaphysical theatre, as well as the notion of'total theatre'
and pure mise-en-scene.9 The political credentials of the pro-
duction were reinforced by Desnos's programme notes
equating Numancia with 'the spirit of freedom in a specific
place' ('I'espr7t de liberte dans un lieu donne'), in order to rally
French intellectuals to the Republican cause. Barrault's avant-
garde production of;Xumance de Cervantes, associated as it was
with Spanish Republicanism and coincident with the bomb-
ing of Guernica, created a context for Picasso's appropriation
of the legend, as well as the theatrical expression he gave it.
While there is no record of Picasso's having seen Aumance, it
is more than likely that he knew of the production, as a num-
ber of his surrealist friends were involved with it. As it hap-
pens, Barrault had occupied the top floor of 7 rue des
Grands-Augustins from 1935-37, the house where Picasso
painted Guernica.l The floor below was drawn to Picasso's
attention by Dora Maar as a possible studio large enough to
house his out-size commission. With the Surrealists Andre
Breton and Georges Bataille, boi friends of Barrault, Maar
had attended meetings there of Contre-Attaque, an anti-
fascist group. Although Picasso may not have needed the
prompting of Barrault's production of Aumance, the play
could well have been a catalyst for the 'staging' of Guernica, for
the theme of victory in annihilation and for some of its eso-
* -

the individual was respected, liberty glorified. On the tersc s

5R. ALBERTI: JVumancaa, Madrid [1975]. text of the Spanish Civil War, but she does not link the play to Guernaca.
6Ibad., p.7. '. . . un exacto paralelo con nuestra capatal republacana, en el eyemplo de resastencaa,
8J.-L. BARRAULT: Memor7es for 7iomorrow: 7Che Memoars of jtean-Louas Barrault, London
moraly espar7tu de los madr7lenos de hoy domana la misma grandezay orgullo de alma [1974],
numanta-p.89.
nos'. 9BARRAULT, abad., p.83. See also A. ARTAUD: Collected Works ((Eurres completes) IK 7Che
7See s. WILSON: '1937: Problemes de la peinture en marge de l'Exposition interna- 7Cheatre and atsDouble, ed. P. THEVINAN, Paris, revised ed. [1976-].
tionale', in Paras-Paras: 1937-1957, exh. cat., Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris gARRAuLT, op. cat. at note 8 above, p.77.
[1981], new ed. [1992], p.75. Sarah Wilson discussesJVumancewithin the French con-

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 : 0\:i0;tXi\:tl;>X0 ;tS.0:4S00EX:;,i:.7\f<-W7iKf-X/0$ :^gouache
-f_;/
7; o2;:f/>tTnnlv,l7ay7on, -rDy
PICASSO S GUERNICA AND CERVANTES S NUMANCIA
24. (Suernzca: (fomposztzon study 1V, lstMay, by Plcasso. 1YS/. Pencll on paper, t3./ by
64 7 cm. (Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid).
;t; :t (;;;; , s S: X , J V ; 5. rallzng man
|0:: !: S .:_ , T f ,,e,
0 t 0 7 _ | :0, p
:E
t 0 LF- 0 ) :fv & & 0 0 : Penciland
\ 0 : X Ft y paper 23.2 by
: w | z 29.3 cm. (Centro
+ZA <#/ 5 - de Arte Rema
r ' r Sof1a, Madrid).
Picasso's compositional and figure sketches for Guernica
contain apparent allusions to Jtfiumancia and its theatrical con-
ception, although elements from these do not always figure
in the final work. He built up a narrative as the sketches pro-
gressed, only to pare it down in the final state. What might
have been a more historical rendering of the theme is super-
seded by a modernist, and more visually powerful statement.
Composition study ITT 1st of May (Fig.24) introduces the legend
of Numancia, I would suggest, through the fallen figure
clutching a spear, which could be an allusion to the Roman
soldier in Cervantes's play, who was killed by the Numantinos
at the beginning ofthe siege. Roland Penrose refers to the fall-
en figure as 'a prostrate figure wearing a Greek helmet'.ll The
fallen figure underwent a variety of changes in subsequent
sketches, overlapping with a fallen horse and a female figure
bearing the profile of Picasso's companion Marie-Therese
Walter. The soldier is thought by some commentators to
be derived from a figure in Picasso's painting The Crucfixion
(1930), which in turn is related to the medieval ApocaRpse of
Saint Sever, illustrated in the second number of the surrealist
review Documents in 1929. 12
On the basis of the evidence contained in a number of
the preparatory sketches, it seems to me, Picasso draws on
the denouement of Aumancia as he develops the content of
R. PENROSE: Picasso:HisEfeandArt, London [1958], p.273.
12J. GOLDING: 'Picasso and Surrealism', in Pablo Picasso 1881-1973, London [1973],
p. 117, notes 41 and 42, p.269.
13CERVANTES, ed. cit. at note 3 above, p.82.
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82
i
: i:
26. Aumance de Cervantes, directed byJ.-L. Barrault, stage sets and costumes by
Andre Masson. Theatre-Antoine, Paris. 22nd April-6th May 1937. Photograph
(Archives Renaud-Barrault, Paris).
Guernica: the women and children are killed by the swords of
their own soldiers. Cervantes's stage directions indicate:
'Four women enter, each with a child in arms and others by
the hand. They embrace.'l3 Picasso, like Cervantes, empha-
sises the mother-child relationship, as did many other artists
in the Spanish Pavilion and, indeed, as did the newspaper
photographs of the Guernica atrocity in Ce Soir and INHuma-
nite'. Cervantes's stage directions could be a fitting description
of one of the final four plates of Picasso's etching Dream and lie
] x 1 of Franco II (Fig.23), completed on 7thJune 1937, three days
1 9 3
lcasso. 7 after Picasso delivered Guernica to the pavilion. In the lower
left-hand image, a mother, placed against a Spanish sierra,
supplicates the heavens, head back and arms outstretched,
while two children cling to her. A man who resembles Guerni-
ca's Falling man (Fig.25) lies dead beside them.
In Cervantes's play, the women of Numancia declaim: 'We
offer our necks to your swords first, which is better than see-
ing ourselves dishonoured by enemies.'l4 One brave woman
shouts: 'Numantinos, freedom'.l5 The women feel anguish,
nonetheless, at their fate, and one woman tries to run away
from a Numantino soldier, who draws his dagger and kills
her. In Guernica an enraged mother holding her dead child, its
body rent in two, appears on the left-hand side of the paint-
ing. In the study known as Mother with dead child (IV), 28thMay
(Fig28), a coloured drawing-collage incorporating hair, the
child's torso is torn open by a sword, a possible illustration
of the moment when the mothers and children meet their
death. Again, in the lower middle image of the Dream and lie
of Franco II (Fig.23), the heads of a mother and child inter-
twine in death, a broken spear, it appears, protruding
between them.
In Cervantes's play, a boy named Bariato, the last person
alive in Numancia, jumps from the highest tower after setting
himself alight in an act of martyrdom that may possibly
be reflected in the plunging figure on the right-hand side of
Picasso's painting.l6 The Guernica sketch Falling man, 27th May
(Fig.25), which depicts a bearded figure wearing a striped
T-shirt and with arms raised, would seem to be a prelim-
inary working-out of this idea. The Falling man carries a sense
of self-identification: he bears a close resemblance to the
'4Ibid., p.88. 'Xuestro cuello of reced a las espapdas vuestrasp7zmero, que es mejorpartido que vem
de enemigos deshonradas' flines 1295-1300).
'5Ibid., p.89. 'Numantinos, libertad' flines 1355-60).
'6Ibid., p.123.
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 PICASSO S GUERNICA AND CERVANTES S NUMANCIA

bearded figure on the ladder, assumed to be a reference to

Picasso, in the Minotauromachia (1935; Fig.27), from which
some ofthe figures and symbols of Guernica are derived. In the
early states of the painting, however, the figure appears as
female, while it is of ambiguous gender in the painting's final
state.
Not only might individual figures, such as those mentioned
above, be associated with characters in JVumancia, but Picas-
so's whole theatrical conception of Guernica could well have
drawn on Cervantes's scenography, or more generally on that
o n . r n s r fs

ot ear Wy tpanls R t zeatre. ze DacKgrouncl ot t ne pamtmg

recalls a theatrical backdrop, with an architectural fac,ade
on the right-hand side. On the left, the space appears open to
the 'outside', while the 'tiled' lower foreground resembles
an inner courtyard which could be construed as a Spanish
renaissance corral, a theatre built around an inner courtyard.
The lower foreground of Guernica may reflect the tiled ground 27. Minotauromachia, by Picasso. April 1935. Etching, 50 by 70 cm. (DACS).
floor ofthe Spanish Pavilion, where the paintingwas installed
and where theatrical performances were held. The revival of
Golden Age theatre in Spain was both an avant-garde and a
populist, political strategy. Under the auspices of the Repub-
lican Government, the poet and playwright, Federico Garcia
Lorca, took the student theatre troupe La Barraca (The Car-
avan - a name derived from the type of cart used by renais-
sance travelling players) to remote towns across Spain to
perform Golden Age plays and some of his own.l7 La Barra-
ca even ventured over the Pyrenees to Paris, to perform in the
Spanish Pavilion.l8
An association of the legend of Numancia with Guernica
was suggested to an Arnerican art historian, Frank D. Russell,
by a Spanish painter,Jose Maorta, and the allusion appears
as one among many in Russell's 1980 comparative visual
analysis ofthe images of Picasso's painting.l9 Russell makes no 28. Guernica: Mother with dead child (IV), 28th May, by Picasso. 1937.
mention of Cervantes's play, however, citing instead a differ- Pencil, gouache, coloured crayon and collage on paper, 23.1 by 29.2
cm. (Centro de Arte Reina Sofela, Madrid).
ent account of the legend in which the Numantinos throw
themselves from the city walls to escape capture.20 He notes daughter Maya to Marie-Therese Walter that year caused an
that the word 'Numancia' was a slogan of the Loyalist troops, upheaval in his living and working arrangements, com-
and that the Basque country and its capital of Guernica pounded by the start of the Civil War July 1936). With the
were known as 'a modern Numancia'.2l But Russell was more painting of Guernica he at last broke free of his artistic solip-
interested in the not very convincing visual parallel of the sism.

G?lernica horse to an image on a shard of pottery from
Numancia, and otheiwise kept the allusion vague.
It was probably in earlyJanuary 1937 that Picasso was
commissioned formally to paint the focal work of the Span-
ish Pavilion, due to open the following May. Although he was
completely involved in the organisation of the pavilion early
in the year, an apparently uninspired Picasso showed no sign
of starting his large commission, much to the consternation
of his co - organis ers , Jo sep Lui s S ert and Luis Lacas a, who
were also the pavilion architects.22 They supposed that Picas-
so had not yet found a theme, and accepted that he never
liked to work to order. For at least eighteen months prior to
his activities in the Spanish Pavilion, Picasso had experienced
a period of introversion. From April 1935 to February 1936,
he gave up art altogether- a unique occurrence in his career
- and committed his ideas to poetry.23 His artistic hiatus
in 1935 may have been due in part to personal problems. An
official separation from his wife Olga and the birth of his
On 1st May 1937, the day after the news of the bombing
of Guernica was published, Picasso rapidly sketched Composi-
taon study I, 1st May (Fig30), his first conception of Guernica,
with its familiar image of the bull and the horse and the
woman with lamp, seen previously in the Minota?lromachia
(Fig.27). Later on that same day, in the more finished Compo-
sition st?ldy IKlstMay (Fig.24), he added the fallen Roman sol-
dier clutching a spear, and the theme of Numancia, it would
seem, appeared. As Guernica developed, Picasso joined his
aesthetic concerns to a concern for the social, taking a direc-
tion similar to that of the maverick thinker and cultural dissi-
dent, Georges Bataille. He collaborated, along vvith Andre
Masson and the ethnologist Michel Leiris (the husband of
Picasso's dealer, Louise Leiris) in a number of avant-garde
intellectual groups and art reviews. The surrealist photogra-
pher Dora Maar, a former companion and collaborator of
Bataille, became involved with Picasso in 1936. It was Maar
who photographed the seven states of Guernica. Bataille

17F. JAVIER BLASCO: 'Prosa y Teatro de la Generaci6n del '27', Historiay Cratica de la 20'The figure of the burning woman perhaps makes most sense when we think of the
Literatura Espanola, VII, ed. F. RICO, Barcelona [1984], pp.536-38. Numancians of tradition throwing themselves defiantly from their walls' (ibid.).
I8J ALIX TRUEBA: Pabellon Espanol: Exposicion international de Paris 1937, exh. cat., 2lIbid., p.l 13
Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid [1987], illustration, p. 153. 22TRUEBA, Op. cit. at note 18 above, pp.99-106.
19F.D. RUSSELL: Picasso's Guernica: fAe Labyrinth of ;Narrative and Esion, London [1980],
23K. BRUNNER: Picasso Rewriting Picasso: Poetry and Plays) ]935-]959, unpublished doc-
p.114. toral dissertation, University of London, 1997.

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 PICASSO S GUERNICA AND CERVANTES S NUMANCIA

29. Guernica: Composition study VII, 9thMay, by Picasso. 1937. Pencil on paper, 24 by 45.3 cm. (Centro 30. Guernica: Composition study I, lstMay, by Picasso. 1937. Pencil on
de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid). blue paper, 21 by 26.9 cm. (Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid).

dedicated to the artist a special number of his review, Docu-
ments 3 - Hommage a Picasso (1930), although the two did not
remain in direct contact after the mid-1930s. Two essays by
Bataille may have a bearing on Guernica: 'Rotten Sun' ('Soleil
pourri', Documents, 1930), in which Bataille refers to Picasso as
the only contemporary artist to express his extreme aesthet-
ic, and 'Nietzschean Chronicle' (Acephale, 1937), in which he
cites Cervantes's ;&umancia and Barrault's production of
;&umance.
In Guernica (Fig.22) Picasso places the speared horse under
a harsh triangle of light cast by an arc light, a substitute for his an aesthetic of abjection related to Bataille and elaborated in
previous image of the sun, while an impassive bull looks on.
The conjunction of a bull and animal sacrifice with a glaring
arc light and the displaced sun in Guernica recalls Bataille's
aesthetic concept ofthe 'rotten sun'. Bataille writes: 'If. . . one
obstinately focuses on it [the sun], a certain madness is
implied, and the notion changes meaning because it is no
longer production that appears in light, but refuse or com-
bustion, adequately expressed by the horror emanating from
a brilliant arc lamp.'24 (Picasso's arc lamp reminded Roland
Penrose of the lamp described by Bataille in 'Rotten Sun', an
impression which Penrose duly footnoted, along with a sum-
mary of Mithraic sacrifice, but without elaboration.)25 More
prosaically, the arc lamp was a fixture of Picasso's studio at 7
rue des Grands-Augustins and featured in a series of twelve
sketches entitled The Studio: the Painter and his Model (1 8th and
include the sacrifice of the Numantinos. Eight days after the
l9th April 1937), the only known sketches connected with first sketch, in Composition study VII, 9th May (Fig.29), Picasso
Picasso's commission from before the bombing of Guernica.26
'Rotten Sun' describes an initiation rite of the cult of the
Roman god Mithras. A priest sacrifices a bull at noon, shower-
ing warm blood from the animal's slit throat on the initiates,
who become one with the god.27 For Bataille, the loss of iden-
tity during sacrifice is also a moment of illumination before
a collapse into madness and death. Bataille's narrative of the
'rotten sun' becomes an allegory of representation, ruled by a
dialectic of elevation and fall: the first, abstract sun is a prime
metaphor for 'mathematical serenity', while the second, rot-
ten sun induces madness and disorder. A reference to Picasso
ends Bataille's essay: 'In contemporary painting, however,
the search for that which most ruptures the highest elevation,
and for a blinding brilliance, has a share in the elaboration or
decomposition of forms, though strictly speaking this is only
noticeable in the paintings of Picasso.'28
For Bataille, Picasso's contemporaneity is his rupture of
classical form, signalling the end of mimesis and the collapse
of metaphysics, or philosophical dualism, for which the
abstract sun is a prime metaphor. Picasso often quoted the
phrase 'rotten sun' in his poetic texts of the mid-1930s, in
which the powerful bull revels in the horse's spilled guts - an
image of the abject, or that which defies representation.29
Thus, the central symbols of Guernica could be taken to imply
Picasso's poetic texts. However, the open wound of the horse
in Guernica displays not spilling guts, but an empty space,
hard-edged and chiselled, which opens to reveal the black
background of the painting. In the months before the bomb-
ing of Guernica, Picasso had focused on the abject in his
poetic texts, at the same time as he was experiencing difliculty
in finding a theme for the commissioned painting. The
horse's wound - a metaphor for the origin of representation
in Picasso's writings - seems to symbolise all that he needed
to suppress in order to create a work of art.
If this discussion of Guernica may seem to have taken us
some way from JVumancia and theatre, the legend ofthe Celtic
city now returns to the fore. The theme of sacrifice - the act
at the origin of Picasso's alternative aesthetic - broadens to
expanded the concept of Guernica to include the fallen figures,
their fists raised in the Republican salute as they die - the
depiction of a community united in tragedy. Curiously, this
study features a wheel - a peasant cart or a Republican
image? - which never appears again. In State II (Fig.31) of
the painting, photographed by Dora Maar, a large fist thrust-
ing a shaft of wheat against a sun/sunflower and making the
Republican salute dominates the centre of the painting. From
State IV onwards, Picasso replaces the powerful fist with the
horse, its neck stretched up in agony. In so doing he radically
alters the image of Spain: the phallic Republican salute
becomes a female horse with a tensed neck. The defiant fist
became a more ambivalent image, as a Republican defeat
drew closer. It therefore seems to me that, as State II would

24Documents -Hommage 2 Picasso, second year, 3 [1930]; for the translation, see note 27 27G. BATAILLE, 'Rotten Sun', in idem: Esions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939, ed.
below. A. STOEKL, Minneapolis [1993], pp.57-58, (originally produced as 'Soleil pourri',
25PENRoSE, Op. cit. at note 11 above, p.273. Documents, second year, 3 [1930], pp. 1 73-74).
26The Musete Picasso, Paris, II, Drawings, Watercolours, Gouaches, Pastels, London [1988], 28Ibid., p.58.
cat. nos. 106F77, p.336. 29BRUNNER, dissertation cited at note 23 above, pp. 108-13.

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 PICASSO S GUERNICA AND CERVANTES S NUMANCIA

31. Guernica, State II, by Picasso. May 1937. Photograph by Dora Maar. (Picasso archives, Musee Picasso, Paris).

indicate, Picasso considered painting an overtly political
work, but finally determined on a more universal, mythic
statement.
Although it is difiicult to say whether Barrault's production
of Aumance influenced Picasso in the first days of May, the
artist's allegorisation seems to accord with Barrault's and
Masson's surrealist myth-making in their staging. Masson's
costumes and sets for J%umance, Bataille commented, con-
tributed to the mythic grandeur of the play, creating 'a magic
through which the essential themes of mythic experience
regained their brilliance'.30 Masson's backdrop depicts a vast,
rocky sierra in a distant era. His allegorical emblems of a bull's
head with horns enclosing a human skull (for Numancia),
and a fasces and vulture (for Rome) oppose two mythic
worlds. In his own reading of Cervantes's Xumancia) in 'Niet-
zschean Chronicle', Bataille refers to the opposition of these
two worlds: the 'Caesarian Heavens' - mythical Rome, fas-
cism - and the 'Dionysian Earth' - Numancia, anti-fascism.3l
For Artaud, whom Barrault claimed as an important influ-
ence, myth was a crucial element in the renewal of theatre.
'The Theatre of Cruelty', Artaud wrote, 'will choose subjects
and themes corresponding to the disturbance and unrest of
our times . . . The themes will be cosmic, universal, per-
formed according to the most ancient texts taken from Mex-
ican, Hindu,Judaic and Iranian cosmogonies.'32 The Swiss
art historian Reinhold Hohl noted a relationship between
Artaud's theatre and Guernica in the painting's sense of 'total
theatre', a fusing of reality, poetry and myth.33 Hohl compares
the shock tactics used on the audience during such a perfor-
mance to the violent impact of Guernica on the viewer.
While the meaning of Guernica has usually been interpret-
ed as tending towards the universal, in 1937 it told another
story related to its time, for which J5fumancia provides the alle-
gory. In Guernica Picasso embraced communal values - the
Spanish Pavilion being a microcosm of a community united
against oppression - and an overt anti-fascist stance. The
artist sought to transcend the format of history painting in
a totality of expression which would involve every aspect of
life: the political, the social, the aesthetic and the 'sacred' (a
notion much used by Bataille, who looked to the unifying
values of a primitive society such as Numancia to restore the
meaningless values of contemporary society).34In the story of
Numancia Picasso found a 'living myth', as Bataille called it
- in opposition to the fascist military myths of Caesarism35 -
in which to cast the atrocity of the bombing of Guernica, as
well as making his aesthetic and social statement. In Guernica
Picasso drew on Bataille's notion of sacrifice as a metaphor
for representation, creating a variation on the allegory of the
'rotten sun': the sacrificial speared horse agonises under an
arc lamp. Through the Numantinos' suicide by sword - pos-
sibly depicted as the rent and bleeding child- and the
speared horse, Picasso expresses a profound moment of exis-
tence for Spain and for himself as an artist and as a member
of the Republican community.
The allegories ofthe 'rotten sun' and Numancia must have
joined together in Picasso's mind almost from the first of May
1937) yet they are not overtly apparent in the final, eighth,
state. For the allegories contain all that was ambivalent and
unpalatable in the painting: the abject ('rotten sun') and the
Numancian suicide by sword, another form of abjection in
self-mutilation and death. It is no wonder that such particu-
lar allegories have remained material for vague allusions and
footnotes to the more general, universal meaning attached to
Guernica.

30BATAILLE, op. cit. at note 27 above, note 8, p.2 12. 33R. HOHL:
3tG. BATAILLE: Nietzschean Chronicle, in ibid., p.205 (originally published in ed. E.C. OPPLER, New York and London [1988], p.319.
Acephale, 3-4 July 1937], pp. 17-18). BATAILLE, op. cit. at note 27 above, pp.202-04.
32A. ARTAUD: 'The Theatre of Cruelty (Second Manifesto)', in Antonin Artaud: Callect- 35BATAILLE, op. cit. at note 27 above, p.209.
ed Works, IV, London [1968-74], p.94.

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